President Trump’s response Sunday afternoon to criticism of his executive orders on refugees and immigration accused the news media of getting the story wrong. There was no “Muslim ban.” There was, instead, a policy that honest reporters ought to have recognized.

“My policy,” Trump wrote, “is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.”

The seemingly out-of-nowhere argument had come from a viral story on the Federalist, a conservative news and opinion site. Originally published in November 2015, when Trump proposed “a complete and total shutdown of all Muslims” entering the country, it had been repopularized this weekend as the furor built. A viral story at Breitbart News, about the same program, had been shared more than 15,000 times on Facebook by the time the White House issued its statement. Gateway Pundit, a conservative blog that is now sending a reporter to White House briefings, scored a hit with a nearly identical story.…

At every turn in the story, Breitbart noticed a reason to be skeptical of the political backlash. Judge Ann Donnelly, who sided with the American Civil Liberties Union against the executive orders, was described as an “Obama-Appointed, Schumer-Allied Judge.” A story about the teary news conference at which Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) announced Democratic plans to oppose the orders was headlined “Trump Week One: Schumer Weeps.”